Axel Hütte

(German, born 1951)

Axel Hütte is a German photographer best known for his mysterious images of landscapes and cities like London and Paris. His carefully constructed, geometric compositions, as well as his use of long exposure times, crystallize Hütte’s landscapes, imbuing them with a timeless quality. In my landscape work I am working with the emptiness, avoiding any signs of civilization or narrative indication, so in [the] best case you are lost in time and space,” he explained. Born in 1951 in Essen, Germany, the artist’s meticulous approach to photography is influenced by his time studying under Bernd and Hilla Becher at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf during the late 1970s. Their instruction has influenced a group of notable contemporary photographers—the Düsseldorf School, as they are known—including Andreas Gursky, Candida Höfer, Thomas Struth, and Thomas Ruff. The artist currently lives and works between Düsseldorf and Berlin, Germany. His photographs are held in the collections of the Folkwang Museum in Essen, the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid, and the Museo Jumex in Mexico City, among others.